David Nicholls - One Day

Emma and Jasmine stand and wave.

‘So, Min, your dad’s not back until six. What do you want to do?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘It’s early. We could go to the zoo?’

Jasmine nods vigorously. Emma holds a family pass to the zoo, and she goes inside to get ready for another afternoon spent with someone else’s daughter.

In the big black car the former Mrs Mayhew sits with her arms folded, her head resting against the smoky glass, her feet tucked up beneath her on the seat while Callum swears at the traffic on the Euston Road. They rarely speak these days, just shout and hiss, and this holiday, like the others, is an attempt to patch things up.

The last year of her life has not been a success. Callum has revealed himself to be boorish and mean. What she took to be drive and ambition have proved to be an unwillingness to come home at nights. She suspects him of affairs. He seems to resent Sylvie’s presence in his home, and Jasmine’s presence too; he shouts at her for merely behaving like a child, or avoids her company altogether. He barks absurd slogans at her: ‘Quid pro quo, Jasmine, quid pro quo.’ She’s two and a half, for goodness’ sake. For all his ineptness and irresponsibility at least Dexter was keen, too keen sometimes. Callum on the other hand treats Jasmine like a member of staff who just isn’t working out. And if her family were wary of Dexter, they actively despise Callum.

Now, whenever she sees her ex-husband he is smiling, smiling away advertising his happiness like the member of some cult. He throws Jasmine in the air, gives her piggybacks, displays at every opportunity what a wonderful dad he has become. And this Emma person too, all Jasmine talks about is Emma-this and Emma-that and how Emma is her daughter’s best, best friend. She brings home pieces of pasta glued to coloured card and when Sylvie asks what it is, she says it’s Emma, then chatters on and on about how they went to the zoo together. They have a family pass, apparently. God, the insufferable smugness of the pair of them, Dex and Em, Em and Dex, him with his chintzy little corner shop — Callum has forty-eight branches of Natural Stuff now, by the way — and her with her push-bike and thickening waist, her studenty demeanour and wry bloody outlook. To Sylvie’s mind there’s also something sinister and calculating in the fact that Emma has been promoted from godmother to stepmother, as if she was always lurking there, circling, waiting to make her move. Don’t drown! Cheeky cow.

Beside her, Callum swears at the traffic on the Marylebone Road and Sylvie feels intense resentment at the happiness of others, combined with misery at finding herself on the wrong team for once. Sadness too, at how ugly and ungracious and spiteful all of these thoughts are. After all, it was she who left Dexter and who broke his heart.

Now Callum is swearing at the traffic on the Westway. She wants to have another child sometime soon, but how? Ahead of her lies a week’s scuba-diving at a luxury hotel in Mexico, and she knows already that this is not going to be enough.

TUESDAY 15 JULY 2003

North Yorkshire

The holiday cottage was not at all like in the photographs. Small and dark, it had that holiday cottage smell, air-freshener and stale cupboards, and seemed to have retained the winter’s chill in its thick stone walls, so that even on a blazing July day it felt chilly and damp.

Still, it didn’t seem to matter. It was functional, isolated and the view of the North Yorkshire Moors was startling, even through the tiny windows. Most days they were out walking or driving along the coast, visiting antiquated seaside resorts that Emma remembered from childhood excursions, dusty little towns that seemed stuck in 1976. Today, the fourth day of the trip, they were in Filey, walking along the broad promenade that overlooks the great expanse of beach, still fairly empty on a Tuesday during term-time.

‘See over there? That’s where my sister got bitten by a dog.’

‘That’s interesting. What kind of dog?’

‘Oh I’m sorry, am I boring you?’

‘Only a little.’

‘Well tough, I’m afraid. Four more days to go.’

In the afternoon, they were meant to go on some ambitious hike to a waterfall that Emma had planned the night before, but after an hour they found themselves on the moors staring uncomprehendingly at the Ordnance Survey map before giving up, lying down on the parched heather and dozing in the sun. Emma had brought along a bird guide and an immense pair of ex-army binoculars, the size and weight of a diesel engine, which she now raised with some effort to her eyes.

‘Look, up there. I think it’s a hen harrier.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Have a look. Go on — up there.’

‘I’m not interested. I’m sleeping.’

‘How can you not be interested? It’s beautiful.’

‘I’m too young to birdwatch.’

Emma laughed. ‘You’re being ridiculous, you know that.’

‘It’s bad enough that we’re rambling. It’ll be classical music next.’

‘Too cool to birdwatch—’

‘Then it’ll be gardening, then you’ll be buying jeans in Marks and Spencer’s, you’ll want to move to the country. We’ll call each other “darling”. I’ve seen it happen, Em. It’s a slippery slope.’

She raised herself on one arm, leant across and kissed him. ‘Remind me again, why am I marrying you?’

‘It’s not too late to cancel.’

‘Would we still get our deposit back?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Okay.’ She kissed him again. ‘Let me think about it.’

They were getting married in November, a small, discreet winter wedding at a registry office, followed by a small, restrained reception for close friends and family at a favoured local restaurant. It was, they insisted, not really a wedding, more an excuse for a party. The vows would be secular and not too sentimental and had yet to be written; almost too embarrassing, they imagined, actually to sit face-to-face and compose those promises to each other.

‘Can’t we just use the vows you made to your ex-wife?’

‘But you are still going to promise to obey me, right?’

‘Only if you vow that you’ll never, ever get into golf.’

‘And you’re going to take my surname?’

‘“Emma Mayhew”. Could be worse, I suppose.’

‘You could hyphenate.’

‘Morley-Mayhew. Sounds like a village in the Cotswolds. “We’ve got a little place just outside Morley-Mayhew”.’

And this was how they approached the big day: flippant, but privately, discreetly elated too.

This week in Yorkshire was their last chance of a holiday before their modest, discreet big day. Emma had a deadline and Dexter was anxious about leaving the business for a whole week, but at least the trip allowed them to stop off at Emma’s parents, an event that her mother had treated like an overnight visit by royalty. Serviettes were on the table, rather than the usual kitchen roll, there was trifle and a bottle of Perrier in the fridge. After the end of Emma’s relationship with Ian it had seemed that Sue Morley would never love again and yet, if anything, she was even more fixated on Dexter, flirting in a bizarre, over-enunciated voice, like a coquettish speaking clock. Dutifully, Dexter flirted back, while the rest of the Morley family could do nothing but stare silently at the floor tiles and try not to laugh. Sue didn’t care; to her it seemed as if a long-held fantasy was finally coming true: her daughter was actually marrying Prince Andrew.

Watching him through her family’s eyes, Emma had felt proud of Dexter; he twinkled at Sue, was boyish and funny with her cousins, seemed sincerely interested in her father’s koi carp and United’s chances in the league. Only Emma’s younger sister seemed sceptical of his appeal and sincerity. Divorced with two boys now, resentful and perpetually exhausted, Marianne was not in the mood for another wedding. They spoke that night while washing up.